1. Technical Field
The embodiments of the present invention described herein generally relate to a system and method for changing key status in a vehicle based on driver status.
2. Background Art
With conventional automotive vehicles, one or more keys are often shared between any number of drivers (e.g., parent/teen, employer/employee, owner/valet driver, or fleet vehicle owner/fleet vehicle driver). In one example, the parents of a teenager (or young adult) that is old enough to drive may share the keys for the vehicle with the teenager. The vehicle may be equipped with various safety and/or driver notification features that may be enabled/disabled via a user interface based on the driver's needs. However, in some circumstances, the parent may not intend to have the various safety and notification related features disabled by the teenager. The parent may enable the safety and notification features prior to allowing the teenager to drive the vehicle, however there is no guarantee that the teenager may keep the safety and notification features enabled while driving the vehicle. Conventional vehicles fail to give parents, or other primary drivers, the option of preventing teenagers eligible to driver or other such secondary drivers from disabling safety and notification features.
In light of the foregoing, it is generally necessary to differentiate between the drivers so that a determination can be made as to when a particular vehicle system should prevent the disabling of the safety and notification features (or other features) in the event the driver is detected to be a teenager or other secondary driver. Further, the determination may be needed to ensure that the primary driver is allowed to disable the safety and notification features as desired. As recognized, the safety and notification features are generally arranged such that a primary driver may disable the features in the event these features are not desired and are not mandatorily imposed by law or other ordinance.